


Lie Low at Barton's

by CitrusVanille



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, M/M, Panic Attacks, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-28 02:53:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14439924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CitrusVanille/pseuds/CitrusVanille
Summary: Set during Age of Ultron. While hiding out at Clint's house, Tony and Steve have a chance to talk it out.





	Lie Low at Barton's

Steve is still awake when Tony finishes in the bathroom, sitting up against the headboard, already deep into a book he must have picked up downstairs. Tony was kind of hoping he’d be asleep, that they wouldn’t have to talk. He’d offered Steve first shower and taken longer than he needed when it was his turn specifically to avoid another confrontation.

But Steve looks up when Tony comes in, marks his place with the flap of the cover, and puts the book down.

Tony carefully hangs his towel over the back of a chair, next to the one Steve used, and tries to decide which of the openings he’d practiced while brushing his teeth will be the least likely to end in bloodshed.

Turns out, he wasted his time.

“You’re still hiding something,” Steve says, but he sounds more tired than combative.

Tony shrugs, turning to face him, and forcibly keeps his hands at his side rather than tapping at his chest where the arc reactor used to be. “Less than you are,” he points out.

“Stark –”

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” Tony offers, half convinced that’s a sure way to get Steve to drop it, half sure it’s the only way to get Steve to talk, and fully aware both of them coming clean is the best option for the team, and the world as a whole. Which feels a little egotistical, but probably isn’t far from the truth.

Steve looks away first, lashes casting dark shadows over his cheeks.

“I shouldn’t be here,” he says after a long moment, quiet like it’s a confession. “I shouldn’t – this isn’t where I belong. Nothing’s right here. But it wasn’t. I saw. The dream, I guess. And it wasn’t right, there, either.” He glances up, gaze skittering over Tony’s face and then away again. “We fought a war. _I_ fought a war. My father, he fought in the First World War. The Great War. The war to end all wars – but that’s every war, isn’t it. The history books now, they say it was the cause of the Second World War. What did that cause? The Cold War? I told Fury, we didn’t fight to keep fighting. We fought to end it. But now I’m here, _now_ , and there’s still fighting to be done, and I don’t know how to do anything else. The First World War killed my father before I ever knew him. The Second World War killed me. I don’t know some days if I’m even awake, and the things she showed me were just as real as anything else, and just as fake.”

Tony waits, doesn’t know what to say to that, doesn’t know if Steve’s still going, but the silence stretches.

Steve plays with the patchwork quilt spread under him, tracing shapes with just the tips of his fingers. It’s distracting, the way his fingers move across the fabric. Tony can see the threads catching at his skin, wonders if the roughness is just from calluses or something else, wants to reach out and touch, find out for himself.

“Sometimes,” Steve says, voice still low, eyes fixed on his hands, and Tony has to shake himself out of his thoughts, “I’m back there. In the middle of a battlefield, or on the Valkyrie and going down. Sometimes I can pull out of it. Sometimes I can’t tell what I’m pulling out of.” He looks up at Tony then, meets his eyes. “Sam asked me once if I was thinking about getting out. Out of the military. Out of SHIELD. Out of fighting. I told him I didn’t know what I’d do with myself if I did. I don’t. I don’t have anything else. If I’m not Captain America, what am I?”

“You’re still you,” Tony replies. He’s not sure if the question was meant to be rhetorical, but it’s not like he can let that go. “You weren’t always Captain America. You weren’t always a soldier.”

Steve shrugs, looks away again. “I wasn’t always good for much, either.”

And that’s just. No. “You think the only thing worth anything is fighting?” Tony demands. “Nothing else matters?”

Steve looks a little startled at that, looks back at Tony, wide eyes stupidly blue, and Tony hates himself a little for noticing. “I didn’t say that.”

“Sounded a lot like it,” Tony points out. He feels like he’s been on edge for days, thinks probably they all have been, and everything’s even closer to the surface with Steve. The fight outside that afternoon drove that home as much as anything else. Talking to Fury helped, he thinks, but he’s still not sure which way he’s going to have to jump.

“I meant,” Steve says slowly, like he’s trying to be very careful with his words, like he knows how thin the ice is right now, “that I wasn’t doing anything that was worthwhile. There are plenty of things that are important, that are necessary – I know Stark Industries does a lot of good in the world – but I didn’t have anything else. I _don’t_ have anything else.”

“You could.” Tony hadn’t even meant to say it, but the words are out there, and he can’t take them back.

Steve eyes him like he doesn’t understand. “The team is falling apart,” he says, and now Tony isn’t sure if he actually didn’t understand, or if he’s being deliberately obtuse. “I thought maybe working together again would bring us back together as a team. Things seemed better, finding the scepter, going after it, the party when we got back. But what’s happening now is only making it more obvious that none of us trust each other. Clint’s family.” He waves a hand as if to encompass the house around them. “None of us even knew.”

“Natasha knew.”

Steve scowls. “And she didn’t feel the need to tell us.”

“It wasn’t her secret to tell.” Tony had been more than a little surprised by the whole thing, a little pissed he didn’t know, maybe a little hurt, but he’s had time to think about it, now, and he understands.

Steve’s scowl deepens. “And what’s your excuse?”

Tony scowls back immediately, because what the hell? “What the hell? I didn’t know any more than you did.”

“Not this,” Steve waves his hand around again. “Everything else. You and Bruce. You’ve been keeping all kinds of secrets, and they’ve turned out to be a hell of a lot more dangerous than Clint’s. What else do you have going on?”

Tony straightens from where he’d been leaning against the wall. “Nothing,” he snaps. “It’s not like we planned for any of this to happen.”

“Messing with things you don’t understand –”

“Is _science_ ,” Tony bites out. “It was theoretical. And incomplete. What happened shouldn’t have been possible. And you’re a goddamned hypocrite to tell anyone off for experimenting, _super soldier_ – just the way you’re a goddamned hypocrite every time you get your righteous panties in a bunch when you don’t get a daily memo detailing everyone’s every thought.”

“I –” Steve stops, blinks, then takes a breath like he’s gearing up to shout.

Tony is not going to listen to another lecture. Not now. “You were dead,” he says, and Steve’s mouth snaps shut so hard Tony can hear his teeth click. “Dying. All of you. But I wasn’t. I was the only one of us still standing. And it was my fault. I could have stopped it. I _can_ stop it. The Maximoff girl, she showed me – you knew. You knew I could have saved everyone. You knew it, at the end, when I was watching you die. When it was too late for any of us. I can’t let that happen.”

Steve opens his mouth again, but Tony’s not done.

“It wasn’t new. I’d never seen it so clearly, but the idea wasn’t new. She didn’t pull it out of thin air and plant it in my brain. We don’t know what’s coming, but there are things out there we can’t begin to imagine, and I _can’t let that happen_. You might think you’ve got nothing besides being a soldier, right now, being Captain America, but you’ll figure it out. You’ve got friends and people who want to care about you if you’d just let them, and your whole damn life ahead of you, and you can do anything you want. But none of it will mean a damn thing if whatever I saw up there comes and we’re not ready for it. Bruce got it. He might not always like it, _I_ might not always like it, but he knows. We have to be ahead of this thing, whatever it is. You talk about sharing, but you won’t even trust us enough to talk to us about what you’re going through, and you don’t ever actually ask about us, either, you just sit in judgement and get angry that no one feels comfortable telling you their deepest, darkest secrets for you to trample over. Everything’s black and white with you. You make up your mind, and that’s it, you’re right, everyone else is wrong, and how dare we have opinions that aren’t yours.” Tony takes a breath, then another, a third, deeper. This isn’t how he wanted this to go. It’s almost like that first meeting, back on the first Helicarrier, the first time the scepter got into their heads. He feels it fizz under his skin – fight or flight, and he never was very good at fleeing – but this isn’t going to help anything, and he knows that.

“Look,” he says, quieter now. “I can’t imagine what you’ve been going through, but not a single one of us is judging you for having a hard time. Being in a war zone is enough to mess anyone up, without almost dying and waking up in the future. We all know that. But you have to understand that we are all dealing with our own lives, our own losses, and you don’t get to decide what information deserves to be kept secret, just for you, and what everyone else has to share with you. It doesn’t work that way. If it’s about you, if it’s to do with you, then you have every right to want to know about it, but what Bruce and I were trying to accomplish – what we _had not yet figured out_ – was not about you. There was no need to tell you or any of the others. Not yet. None of you would have understood the science – we were only just figuring it out ourselves – and we knew you wouldn’t stop to think, you would have just gone off half-cocked without waiting for an explanation.” Tony manages to bite back the _exactly like you did_ , but he knows Steve hears it anyway. He’s not sure if that’s good or bad.

For a long minute, Steve says nothing, but he doesn’t look like he’s waiting for Tony to keep talking, he looks like he’s steeling himself for something.

“You said I haven’t seen your dark side,” Tony reminds him, “and maybe it’s not my right to. But if you expect us – your _team_ – to trust you with our secrets, especially secrets that are not relevant to the team but certainly involve the safety of people _not on the team_ , then you damn well better show us the same courtesy and trust us with yours.”

“You’re right,” Steve says, and Tony takes an actual step back in shock.

“I.” Tony has exactly zero idea how to respond to that. He can almost feel his brain trying to reboot. “What.”

“I need to tell you,” Steve hesitates, looks more unsure than Tony has ever seen him. “I don’t know how to tell you. But you’re right, it’s not my – I don’t have the _right_ to keep this from you.”

Tony is still trying to process. He has no idea what’s about to come out of Steve’s mouth, but he’s sure it can’t be good.

“It’s not about me,” Steve goes on, “but before SHIELD fell, we found out some of what Hydra had done. Or what they claimed they had done. And I don’t know if it’s certain but I think. The accident that killed your parents,” Steve pauses again, and Tony goes still. Whatever he’d been bracing for, this wasn’t it. “It wasn’t an accident. Hydra was behind it. And I think it was the Winter Solider.” There’s a slight hitch to Steve’s voice, but he swallows and says, more firmly. “It was Bucky.”

There’s a thundering in Tony’s ears, and the tiny voice in his brain that’s still functioning logically is saying it’s his heartbeat, but the rest of him is just trying to breathe. His vision tunnels, and everything goes grey.

“Tony?” Steve’s voice sounds far away. “Tony, say something.”

Hands are grasping Tony’s shoulders, shaking him, and Tony looks up, and up, into blue, blue eyes. Tony blinks, and Steve’s face comes into focus, very close to his own. “Steve?”

“Tony,” Steve sounds relieved. He pulls away a little, sitting back on his heels, and Tony realizes he had been crouched on the floor, leaning over him. Which is a little odd, because Tony’s pretty sure he had been standing just a moment before, and now he’s sitting on the floor, with no recollection of how he got there.

“What happened?”

Steve’s face crumples. “I’m sorry,” he says, “I shouldn’t have said anything, you just, you were standing there and then you just. Sat down. I don’t think you fainted, but you didn’t exactly not faint, either. And you weren’t answering me. I thought.” Steve shakes his head. “Should I get Clint? Or – or Bruce?”

Tony waves a hand vaguely. “What are they going to do? What do you mean you shouldn’t have said –” and it all comes crashing back. “Oh.” He can feel his pulse pick up, feels it in his chest and his hands like he’s vibrating. He has to force himself to take deep breaths, focuses on that instead of the way his face is starting to tingle. “Right,” he says, feels like he had to choke it out, but it comes out sounding almost normal.

“Tony, hey, stay with me,” Steve’s hands are back on his shoulders, warm and steady. Tony catches at his wrists and clutches, fingertips pressing into bare skin. “You’re having a panic attack,” Steve tells him, voice low and careful.

“No shit,” Tony grates out, holds on harder. Knowing what’s going on isn’t the issue here.

Steve huffs out a breath that might be a laugh under any other circumstances. “Can you match my breathing?” he asks, inhales slowly, holds it, exhales, holds, and Tony struggles to follow, tries not to think about anything else, doesn’t think about car accidents that might not have been accidents, or police in his dorm room, or closed-casket funerals. Inhale, hold, exhale, hold. Steve’s grip on his shoulders loosens a bit, but he doesn’t let go, just sweeps his thumbs back and forth in a motion that should be irritating but somehow manages to be soothing in its steady beat, like he’s counting his breaths by the movement.

After what might be a few minutes, or might be hours, Tony manages to pry his fingers from Steve’s wrists, winces at the marks his nails have left, little red crescents in skin bleached white from the pressure. “Sorry,” he rasps, lightly touches a fingertip to one of the indents.

Steve flinches, and looks down, startled, like he hadn’t realized Tony had been clawing him open. “Don’t worry about it,” he says, looking back up at Tony. “It’s fine. Are you. How are you?”

Tony’s face is trying to do something, but he’s not quite sure what. He’s not sure it knows, either, and it’s still tingling a little, but at least he can feel it. “You just told me Hydra killed my parents – that your now missing, previously presumed-dead best friend probably killed them – and I just had a panic attack on the floor of the house that belongs to a family I didn’t know existed, where we’re hiding from a genocidal robot I accidentally brought to life while trying to save the world. I’ve been better.”

For a long beat, Steve just stares at him, and then he chokes, but no, he’s not choking, he’s laughing, trying not to, both hands over his mouth like he can hold it in. And Tony can feel it building in his own chest, bubbling up his throat, and then they’re both laughing, high and hysterical. Steve drops down hard onto the floor from where he’d been kneeling, and it just makes him laugh harder, head dropping until his forehead is pressed to Tony’s shoulder, and they’re shaking together as they gasp for air.

It stretches longer than it should, and when it slows, when Steve pulls back and ghosts a touch over Tony’s face, across one cheekbone, Tony realizes he’s crying, feels the sting in his eyes and the dampness under Steve’s thumb, sees tracks on Steve’s cheeks, and doesn’t know when it happened, but he feels looser, somehow. Lighter. Wrung out, but like something’s been lifted.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says again. He’s got one hand cupping the uninjured side of Tony’s face now, thumb matching its earlier motion, brushing tears away even as they dry. “I shouldn’t have – this wasn’t the time.”

“No,” Tony has to agree. “Probably not. But,” he holds up a hand before Steve can say anything, “mass murdering AIs aside, it’s not like there’s a _good_ time to tell someone about the murder of their parents.”

Steve opens his mouth, but Tony cuts him off again.

“Please, don’t,” he says, leans a little into Steve’s touch, puts the hand he’d been holding up on Steve’s shoulder, feels the heat of his skin through the stretched-tight cotton, lets those points of contact ground him. “I’m glad you told me. I can’t,” he closes his eyes briefly, then opens them again to Steve looking concerned again. “I can’t really process all of this right now. I just keep thinking – I blamed him, my father, for years. I thought. He was driving, must have been drunk, and he drove them right off the road and killed her. And I know that when everything else we’re dealing with is done – if we survive it – I’ll have to deal with this. But right now, all I can think is that _he didn’t kill my mom_ , and that. That’s maybe not what I need to be taking from this, but right now? Right now, it’s something I never thought I’d have.”

“You thought Howard killed your mother?” there’s something in Steve’s voice, horror or sympathy, maybe, or something in between, like the very idea is heartbreaking.

Tony shrugs, careful not to dislodge Steve’s hand. “Not intentionally,” he says, and this is exactly what he doesn’t want to talk about, not now. The secrets they’ve been hiding, the fears they carry, they’re out there, and he knows that’s for the best, but this was more than he’d bargained for, and he just. He doesn’t want to think right now. And it’s not usually that simple, but for once, he doesn’t. He tugs Steve forward by the shoulder until he can press his lips to Steve’s forehead, like a benediction, wants to wipe everything away.

Steve startles, looks up, so close they’re sharing air, and Tony will never know which one of them moved first, but they’re kissing.

It’s soft, and sweet, and Tony’s not sure he’s ever been kissed like this. It’s a little awkward, both of them leaning in, sitting on the floor, legs jammed uncomfortably, but Steve’s got both hands framing Tony’s face now, tilting his head to a better angle, and Tony’s got one hand sliding across Steve’s shoulder and up his neck into his hair, feeling him shiver, while he braces the other on Steve’s hip, over the pajama pants borrowed from sources unknown. The thought makes Tony laugh a little into the kiss.

“What?” Steve asks, lips moving against Tony’s with each word. “What’s funny?”

“Nothing,” Tony nips Steve’s bottom lip, kisses him again. “Just,” he tugs the waistband of the pants as he speaks between kisses. “Where did Clint get these?”

It’s Steve’s turn to laugh against Tony’s mouth. “I didn’t want to ask,” he admits, pulling back just enough that they can look at each other, and his expression turns serious. “What is this?”

Tony doesn’t pretend to misunderstand. “I don’t know,” he says honestly. “It feels,” he gropes for the right word, “natural? Not – weird?”

“Not weird,” Steve echoes, like he’s trying it out.

Tony shrugs. “It feels right,” he tells him. “I don’t know what this,” he gestures between them, “is. I don’t know what it can be, if we make it out of this. I know what I’d like it to be, but if that’s not something you want – if _this_ isn’t something you want – that’s okay. It can be whatever you want it to be right now, in this place, before we have to go save the world again, and it can be whatever you want it to be if we come out the other side.”

Carefully, Steve brushes a hand along Tony’s forehead, like he’s pushing his hair back, his other hand sliding down to rest on Tony’s shoulder. “I think I’d like to see where this goes,” he says at last. “You make me so angry, sometimes, but I think. I think this could be worth something. I like you,” his smile is a little wry. “Probably figured that out, what with,” he drops his hand from Tony’s hair to touch his mouth, and it takes an effort not to lick at his fingertips. “But I do. Like you. And when you and Pepper first split, I thought, maybe, but there was so much going on, and now. Well. I think, right now, sleep, we’ve got to, while we can. But after. After, I’d like to try.”

“If there is an after,” Tony can’t help but remind him.

“There will be an after,” Steve insists, tips their foreheads together. “I’m going to take you out for dinner,” he says, voice gone soft.

“And then?” Tony prods.

“And then, we’ll see.” Close as they are, Tony can only see the edges of Steve’s smile, but he can hear it just fine.

“We’ll see,” he agrees, lets Steve pull away and climb to his feet, takes the hand that’s offered so Steve can haul him upright. “Sleep?” he asks.

“Sleep,” Steve nods, gives him a shy smile that looks a little odd on his face, but Tony thinks it was probably a lot more common before he knew him, before the ice, before the war, before the serum.

“I want to be the little spoon,” Tony declares, both because he does, and because he thinks it will make Steve laugh.

It does. Not a full-throated, head thrown back laugh like he’s so rarely seen, but soft and happy, half smile, like he’s never seen before. “I can work with that,” Steve says. He links their fingers together, and tugs Tony towards the bed.


End file.
